Last Chance Harvey (2008)

Dustin Hoffman is jingle writer Harvey Shine, in London for his daughter’s wedding, and feeling isolated. He has a strained relationship with his daughter and his ex-wife – who is now happily remarried – and his job is looking shaky. But then he meets lonely airport worker Kate Walker (Emma Thompson), who is jaded by her lack of love life and her mother’s stifling emotional dependence, and maybe, just maybe there might a chance of happiness for the two of them.

I felt that this was a lovely film – not really a comedy although there were some funny scenes, but very poignant and thanks to the two main leads, immensely watchable (it’s a fairly short film at just over 90 minutes, but seemed to pass by in half in hour!) Harvey is not an altogether likeable character – he can be brusque, and he has clearly not been there for his daughter when she has needed him – but Hoffman’s performance still makes you want to root for him, while acknowledging his flaws. In the hands of a different actor, Harvey could have been someone whose happiness meant little to viewers, but I wanted him to be okay and to get his second shot at happiness. And as for Emma Thompson – well, Kate was always the more sympathetic of the two characters, but Thompson’s acting is just sublime. You really felt what she was going through in each scene – the awkward blind date, where friends of the man her friend has set her up with gatecrash the evening, the awkwardness tinged with delight at finding herself at a wedding reception where she barely knows anyone, and the frustration of dealing with her mother (Eileen Atkins) who Kate clearly loves dearly but who obviously feels the need to unleash every thought on her daughter at any given time.

This is a lovely film, which seemed to slip under the radar at the time of release – watch it for the novelty of seeing a film about romance between two people who are over the age of 30 and who don’t necessarily look like they have just sashayed off the catwalk. Watch it for the incredible acting. Watch it to find yourself really caring about these believable, flawed people. Whatever your reason, just watch it!